Gallery highlights

Gallery highlights

The Journeys gallery explores the journeys of people to and from Australia and the social, political and economic impacts of those journeys. Here are some of the highlights from the 750 objects on show in the gallery. These objects are from the National Museum's collections, unless otherwise stated.

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'Southern Cross' propeller fragment

Two journeys of adventure

This propeller fragment comes from the Southern Cross, the three-engined Fokker aircraft flown by Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith on pioneering flights between Australia and England in the 1920s.

The propeller was smashed during a dramatic mail flight between New Zealand and Australia in 1935.

Kingsford Smith gave this fragment to 16-year-old Victor Piper, who met the famous pilot when he landed in Australia.

In 2001 the fragment went into orbit around Earth with Australian-born astronaut Andy Thomas.

Thomas took it with him aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery to honour Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's aviation achievements.

Thomas became the first Australian citizen in space when he flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1996. He has completed three further journeys into Earth's orbit, including 141 days aboard the Mir space station.

Minh Tam Nguyen's 'dan tre' (bamboo musical instrument)

From 1975 Minh Tam Nguyen spent six years as a prisoner of war in the 're-education' camps of the People's Liberation Armed Forces, or Vietcong, in central Vietnam.

During breaks from hard labour, Minh invented and played a musical instrument that combined features from Vietnamese bamboo zithers and Western instruments like the guitar. He called it the dàn tre, which means 'bamboo musical instrument'.

Minh made this 23-stringed dàn tre in a Philippine refugee camp after fleeing Vietnam in 1981. He brought the instrument with him when he and his son came to Australia in 1982. Playing the dàn tre connected him to the family he had been forced to leave behind in Vietnam.

'Tales of the Souk' by Fatima Killeen

An artist's connections to Morocco

Fatima Killeen grew up in Casablanca, in Morocco. Her passion for visual arts led her overseas to study painting and photography at the prestigious Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC, in the United States. There Fatima met her Australian husband-to-be, John, and in 1994 they moved to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.

Killeen created Tales of the Souk, during her final year at the Canberra School of Art in 1997. She soaked the wooden pieces that make up its patterned surface with fragrant saffron, henna and black nut powder to evoke the sights and smells of the Casablanca souks, or markets.

The eight-pointed stars in the work are known in Arabic as 'khatim'. These symbols are used widely in Islamic art and patterns made up of this shape decorate mosques and homes across Morocco.